Super Best Audio Friends

For those who asked, e.g., @YMO:

Installing the Schiit Mesh card was a straightforward process. The most challenging part is having a small hex wrench to loosen the retaining screw on the volume knob. Once that's done, simply unscrew the four Phillips screws on the top and remove the lid.

The Mesh DAC card differs slightly from the ESS card in that it sits vertically rather than horizontally. Make sure all four pins are properly seated in the socket. My initial attempt only inserted four of the eight pins in the 2x4 array into the socket. I noticed this through a visual inspection, where the card appeared offset at an angle.

Recently they popped up at "only" 150 Euros on Amazon Warehouse in "Like New Condition" here in Spain, so I decided to get a pair. Usually these cost somewhere around 280 Euros and rarely pop up on the local second hand market. Given how even on Amazon Warehouse one is able to return an item within 14 days, I just had to give them a go. Quick review below.

BUILD
Nice! I really like the British Racing Green esque color on the cups. When there isn't a ton of sunlight, these actually look almost black. Give the cups more light and the dark green color will pop up. Wing system is not for everyone but works great for me. Definitely designed for big asian heads like mine! The cable is covered in braided fabric, but unlike Focal Clear's OG cable, is actually quite nice and doesn't get in the way. Jack at the end feels quality made. Cable is non-removable, because of course it's not. Also, made in Japan which is something you don't see all that often these days. Pads are soft and roomy. I am not 100% sure, but these might have some form of memory foam inside. Sweet!

SOUND
Before putting them on I was expecting something Audio Technica "Neutral". Usually this means elevated voices, peaky treble, with a little bit of mid-bass elevation. Oddly enough these are very different. There's a LOT of midbass, some subbass, very dark voicing, and ok treble with an annoying peak at around 10KHz. More details below!

So Lindsay and I did a video a while back about how horrible the Wiim Pro sounded here: https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/wiim-pro-streamer-review.14835/

Below is the SPDIF output. Unfortunately I forgot to grab the zoomed in square wave. After all, a bunch of square waves at 44.1kHz (or 48kHz, or whatever the sampling rate) is what the output is supposed to look like. Below is are square waves squished tightly together but zoomed out.

Valhalla 3 is out. We compare to the TA-66 with HD800, JAR600, and ZMF Caldera



This is one is mostly Lindsay's show. I'm really liking this format because she hears thing I don't notice, so that forces me to do a double take. This is a good thing because I have my biases and she is new at this without any preconceived notions.

As you guys know I live on America's Penis, which is Florida. Summers in Florida are harsh, but not close to Southeast Asia or places like Singapore. Summers here in Florida (including most of the Southeastern US) gets Hot/Humid where the air is max Humidity. This means nothing will dry off your clothing because there's no where the water that's on your shirt for example can evaporate to. If you were in West Coast where it is dryer, shirts can dry much faster (but this all depends on the material of what you are wearing).

I have more things to talk about, but for now I want to focus on what material you are wearing clothing wise.

Cotton Is a Double-Edge Sword

Polyester Is Another Double-Edge Sword

Linen is Good To A Point

Powder Your Butt and Balls

Smelly Pits

Shave The Balls

To be honest, I haven't been keeping up with Schiit lately, so the Mimir surprised me. It's amusing because I remember discussing a "What If" scenario with Jason, similar to those Marvel or DC Comics shows that explore alternate realities, like Evil Superman or Tony Stark as Doctor Doom. My "What If" was this: What if we could attach the megacomboburrito filter directly to the front of the ESS chips during the D to A conversion? I was curious if this was feasible because one aspect I really dislike about the filters provided with the ESS chips is how they stage the sound. The headstage or soundstage often feels flat and lacking depth, which may work for some headphone users, but for me, it feels overly constrained. What was the phrase about the ESS soundstage? As flat as Keira Knightley's chest.

Let me get this out of the way first: the Grado HP100 is the most technically capable Grado to date.


I've directly compared the HP100 to the latest and greatest from RS1X, GS3000X, etc., and this takes the cake with respect to technicalities, that is clarity, resolution, smoothness, and bass extension. I am curious if and how the distortion measurements will indicate.

The HP100 SE comes with two different kinds of pads. The big salad bowl G pads and the flat F pads. For those not familiar, refer to this post on what the F pads do for various headphones in the Grado lineup.

Just got the recently-announced Lumin U2 in for review. The U2 is solely a "streamer"; its function is to connect an upstream music server to a downstream DAC.

One of the nice things about the U2 is that it has two very useful new features that the U2 Mini and U1 don't have: an SFP-type optical transceiver port to allow connection via LC/LC optical fiber directly into the U2 from an upstream server (no need for potentially grungy and dirty copper Ethernet connections-gack! ), and a new "dedicated" USB port that is exceptionally quiet and...direct-coupled. This port's function is soley to connect to a USB DAC, rather than USB devices e.g. hard drives, flash media, etc.

Some pics:


I'm connecting to the U2 via LC/LC fiber from EtherREGEN in the remote server room, and the P1 with a USB cable.

Here is a simple guide to get started exercising at home with calisthenics (resistance training using only your bodyweight).

The sheer amount of fitness information online often leads to analysis paralysis, self-doubt, and a failure to build the consistency needed to make progress.



Fitness influencers thrive on content overload—because if they stop posting, they stop being relevant. That’s why there are 2,000 videos on how you're doing bicep curls 'wrong' and the one 'secret' to maximize your gains.

I got to hear one of the two new high-end releases from Raal recently and thought it might be worth creating a thread for them even though I doubt many here will be in the market for them.

I have been meaning to do a write up on the JBL 4367, but have been a bit lazy. It was @Xecuter who first turned our group on to these speakers, followed by @Jonah . I heard these at a dealer (courtesy of Koth and Ramesh) and came anway extremely impressed. It didn’t quite pull off the disappearing act and the wrap around staging and imaging like that of the summit-fi, narrow baffle speakers. I suspect it could have done a better job in a larger room with better treatments/acoustics.

Preamble
I have been out of the portable game for a while. The last DAP I owned (and loved) was the iBasso DX50. Later on I tried a number of dongles along with cheap and midrange IEMs and headphones. Most recently I have come to enjoy the iBasso DC-Elite, the iFi Audio Hip Dac 3 and Chord Mojo 2. I will attempt to compare the DX340 to these sources as they are the ones I am most familiar with.

For reference, out of the three dongles, the Chord Mojo 2 and iBasso DC-Elite were my favorite (quite a large performance delta when coming from the Hip Dac 3). The Mojo 2 has a wonderful sense of space, head stage, analog warmth and drive. The DC-Elite has noticeably less driving power, and so loves easy-to-drive headphones and IEMS. It has exceptional resolve, detail and clarity, along with PRAT.

Build and Usability
In regard to the DX340’s build and usability… I refuse to write up a review of the device itself, and want to keep this about the audio quality. That being said, I find the unit to be very heavy, well built and easy to use. I see this as more transportable than portable. I certainly can't fit it in my pocket and just use it at my desk or in bed. I have not had any noticeable issues with it, and I find the battery life reasonable, and the ability to change the gain for the DAC and Amp sections (along with the ability to drive the amp section with a 12v external power supply) to be a game changer.